


Hypothermia

by maqcy



Series: Whumptober 2018 [11]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Cas might be human, Dark fic, Dean and Sam are still hunters, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt No Comfort, Hypothermia, Hypothermic Castiel, M/M, Whump, Whumptober, not quite sure, self blame, this is a dark one guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 17:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16269098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maqcy/pseuds/maqcy
Summary: Castiel gets locked in a freezer.





	Hypothermia

**Author's Note:**

> This is late, sorry, and also I wrote it about ten minutes ago so it is unbetaed and possibly full of mistakes. I'm tired. Also...guys this is a dark one. Do look out for yourselves <3 Anyway, to those who are feeling emotionally-robust, enjoy!

_Castiel_

“Castiel,” Ruby’s sharp voice made Cas startle and he came over, drying his hands on his apron. “Freezer,” she said shortly, pushing two tubs of ice cream into his hands and turning away. Cas frowned slightly, confused as to why he was being told to run errands when he was of the same seniority as Ruby, and why Ruby hadn’t needled at him like she almost always did.

But he didn’t want to aggravate her when she made life difficult enough for him already and he just turned to take the ice cream back to the freezer. This was just a side-job that Cas did when he had the spare time, to help Sam and Dean out with gas-money and Cas didn't care enough to confront Ruby about her petty cruelties towards him. Cas swore he heard giggling behind him but he didn’t turn around, just hunched his shoulders slightly.

Shifting the tubs to one hand, Cas opened the heavy lever on the freezer and nudged the door open with his foot as he headed into the chilled space inside. He shoved the ice cream back onto the icy-crusted shelf, shivering briefly at the change from the hot kitchen and then turned, putting a hand to the cold door to push it open. But it didn’t move and Cas, frowning, thinking it was sticky with ice, pushed harder but it wouldn’t budge.

Cas froze at the sound of- something on the other side and he slammed his palm into the door. “I can’t open the door!” he said, raising his voice. He heard muffled giggling and he tensed rigid. “Ruby?” he said. “Ruby!” Fuck, _fuck_. He was so screwed. “Ruby!” he yelled desperately but he couldn’t hear anything. They had been closing up for the night, no one was going to come in here. “Ruby don’t leave me here!” he shouted and threw his shoulder against the door, pleading, scared, but his voice just echoed around the freezer and Cas shuddered as the cold began to settle on him properly.

His breathing picking up with panic, Cas fumbled at the inside door handle, but it was up; the door _should_ open. He didn’t get it, had Ruby wedged the door shut?

Setting his jaw, Cas took several steps backward and then came at the door to throw his shoulder against it again, but the door didn’t move an inch and his shoulder just throbbed in protest. 

“Fuck,” Cas said, shaking. He could see his breath misting in the air as the freezer temperature dropped back down to where it was meant to be after he’d let in warmer air by opening the door. The thermometer on the wall read -17 degrees Celsius and Cas stared at it for several seconds.

“Help!” he screamed, panic overwhelming him and he slamming his hands into the door in desperation. “Help me!” Silence.

 

*

_Dean_

Dean stared out at the dark road, clenching his hands around the leather steering wheel. His neck and shoulders were complaining with a heavy, insistent ache at the amount of driving he’d done and he tilted his head side to side, trying to dispel it. It’d been a long, frustrating day and he just wanted to get back.

He pulled over half-an-hour later for a piss and idly checked his phone as he was walking back towards Baby.

“Shit,” he muttered. Five missed calls from Cas. He called Cas back as he was climbing back into the car and set the phone on the passenger seat as he started driving, figuring that if Cas had called him that many times, it was probably urgent enough that Dean should get home.

“D-dean?” Cas sounded bad and fear curdled in Dean’s gut.

“Yeah? Cas?” Dean said, his eyes flicking from the road to the phone with Cas’s name on its glowing screen. “Cas what’s wrong? Where are you?”

“Need you to g-get me out,” Cas said, sounding like his teeth were chattering. Dean didn’t understand.

“Get you from where?” he demanded.

“Freezer,” Cas said. “At w-work. I-I didn’t want- c-call the police.” Yeah, because Dean and Sam and probably Cas too these days weren’t on the police’s Christmas card list.

“I’m still a half-hour away, Cas,” Dean said stiffly, forcing himself not to grip the steering wheel so hard, even as he pressed down the accelerator and felt Baby purr beneath him. _Good girl_ , he thought silently. “Listen, Cas?”

“Y-yes?”

“If it gets too bad- if you get too cold, you call an ambulance, you hear me?” Dean said. The hospital would tell the police, sure, but prison was better than death. “Promise me, Cas.”

“Okay,” Cas said softly.

Dean dragged a hand through his hair and pushed Baby faster. “I’m coming,” he promised. “Just hang on.”

“Dean,” Cas said, seeming to be struggling to form sentences.

“What happened, Cas? Talk to me,” Dean urged.

He heard Cas take a breath on the other end of the phone. Dean checked the speedometer; pushing eighty, but he couldn’t go any faster down these roads, not without risking coming off them and he was no use to Cas or Sam or anyone, dead.

“Someone’s l-locked me in,” Cas stuttered. Dean could hear the uneven shuddering of his breaths and he wanted nothing more than to be there, to get Cas out of there, _now_.

“Who?” Dean growled. God fucking damn he’d gut them.

“Just- just get me. Y-you’ll- have- break in. R-restaurent’s-” Cas broke off. “Really cold, Dean,” he said. “Cold.”

“I know,” Dean said, his throat tight. “I’m still twenty minutes off, okay? But you call an ambulance if it gets too bad, yeah? Cas?”

“Ye’,” Cas slurred and Dean pushed Baby up to ninety. He was getting nearer town, finally.

“I’m coming,” he swore. He was furious at himself for wasting time earlier. He should have known, should have been more focused on getting home, should have picked up the goddamn phone for fuck’s sake. “Cas?”

Cas didn’t respond, Dean could just hear his muffled breathing.

 _Fuck fuck fuck_.

He swerved round several corners, earning angry horn blasts from the few drivers that were still on the road at this time; close to two a.m.

“Cas?” he pleaded as he got closer to the restaurant. Three more streets, two, one. “Cas?” But Cas wasn’t answering. Dean shoved his phone in his pocket.

He pulled Baby to a screeching stop outside and scrambled out the car so fast that he tripped over the curb and dragged himself up with scraped palms to grab something heavy from the boot. He barely glanced around before he was breaking the window with the tyre iron and the glass was barely on the ground before he was running inside, glass crunching under his feet. An alarm went off but Dean barely heard it.

“Cas?” he shouted as he shoved tables aside to sprint towards the kitchen. “Cas!”

Freezer, there. Dean fumbled at the lever to open the door, before stilling, confused when he realised it was open. He yanked at the door but it stayed closed and baffled and panicked, he glanced desperately around for what was keeping it closed.

There; a small sliding door lock at the top. Tiny, but enough to keep the door closed, evidently. Dean stretched up to fumblingly get it free, pulling the door open and wincing at the rush of cold air.

“Cas?” he breathed at the blue-pale figure hunched on the floor. His phone lay in his hand and Dean choked. “Cas?”

Cas didn’t stir and Dean couldn’t see him breathing as he crouched down and picked him up, limp as a doll.

Dean ran with him out of the restaurant to take him to Baby. _Hospital_ , he thought, barely able to think at all.

Dean lay him down in the passenger seat and climbed into the driver’s seat, only to freeze. Cas really wasn’t moving.

“Cas?” Dean choked, leaning over to touch his cold face, his cheek. He could the blue lights of the police arriving but he ignored them. _God no, not you_ , he thought. _Please, god, please_. “Cas?” he cried and held Cas’s head in his hands.

 “Sir get out of the car!” someone yelled.

“Cas?” Dean sobbed. “ _Cas_?”

There were hands grabbing at him and Dean didn’t have the strength to stop them dragging him out of the car, “Help him!” he yelled. “He needs a doctor!”

“Get on the ground!” the police officer ordered and Dean, half-collapsing, did as he was told. He should have called an ambulance for Cas, he never should have made him wait- oh god, oh god.

“Please help him!” he shouted, pleading.

The second officer was around Cas’s side of the car and he looked up at the officer that was hovering over Dean. He shook his head, mouth grim.

“No!” Dean screamed. “He’ll be okay! Get an ambulance! Get a-”

“Take a fucking breath, kid.”

“No- I,” Dean couldn’t let them just fucking give up on Cas- he couldn’t. He lurched off the ground only for the sting of a taser to bite into his back and then he was spasming violently on the ground.

“He’s gone, son,” the officer said. Dean dragged himself up and forced his way to Cas’s side, touching his cold face.

“No,” he cried. “No, no.”

But it was too late and Cas didn’t move.

**Author's Note:**

> So I said i'd put characters through hell and then give them a happy ending? Yeah, whoops. Sorry.


End file.
